November 19, 2012

36-45. Today, I woke up before my alarm. I was not completely exhausted. I made breakfast, and I was a bit sloppy about doing so, so I had to clean up the milk after myself. I had time to do it. As I drove to work, I reminded myself that I had copies to make and students papers to print out. I just finished doing that without haggling over the one printer for faculty (we have a lab of them) or waiting in line for the copier (I've only had to wait once, and have never found the copier without toner or paper). No colleagues will be screaming at each in other in the hallway. I will not be introduced to anyone who, having never met me, will be in charge of helping me become a better teacher. In a few minutes, I will teach a class that will be full of young men and women who are polite to me, each other and to themselves. They will listen respectfully and speak politely, even when animated. They will have opinions about me and my teaching, but they will keep them to themselves unless asked. I will not struggle to engage them. I will not constantly beg for quiet. I will not end up dumbing down the assignment because I know no one will agree to do the more complex task. I can assign homework. I can ask them to read and re-read. At no point will someone drop in to observe me without announcement, and a record will not be kept of everything I said in the class to use against me in the future. I both like and trust my boss. I've been provided with a mentor who is helpful. I am allowed to make mistakes. My students are given responsibility for their own learning.

In short, I do not work for the NYCDOE anymore. And, while I miss the wonderful students and colleagues I met there, I couldn't be more thankful for that.

November 15, 2012

26. I'm thankful to be taking photos again. I really enjoy capturing the small pleasures of life with the Instagram app on my iPhone. I've got three journals of those photos now, which I should share with you soon.

27. I'm thankful every time I receive something with handwriting on it. I love email and texting, but nothing beats getting a card or note with a friend or family member's distinctive script on it. It makes me sad that cursive writing is being removed from school curricula.

28. I'm thankful for the Teaching Artist community of Pittsburgh. I'm starting to know my way around a bit more, and to meet some amazingly cool people, who are dedicated to both art and education.

29. I'm thankful for the song "Lean on Me" which Pandora keeps insisting I listen to on my commute. It reminds me of the kids I loved at the school where I worked in Brooklyn, because they sang it at graduation in June. It also reminds me of my former colleagues who I miss -- E and D, especially. And it has a great, simple message that I need to hear frequently. I need to remember I've got some people right up the road, who'll bear my load, if I just let them.

30. I'm thankful for twitter and blog contests. I have always gotten a thrill out of winning stuff -- hey, there are worse vices -- and I've won a book, tickets to a show, a t-shirt and an umbrella off twitter or blogs in the last few months. Yay for nice new free things!

31. I'm thankful for the education I'm getting in writing fiction. In the last few months, I've read Faulkner, Welty, Paley, Toibin, Capote... and so many more. It's fascinating and involving.

32. I'm thankful to have spent autumn in beautiful Western Pennsylvania. Gorgeous.

33. I'm thankful to have most of next week off for Thanksgiving. Instead of worrying about flying out of NYC on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, I can just drive in when I like. Happy.

34. I'm thankful I've got a good agent who cares about my work and wants to make it better known.

November 14, 2012

16) I am thankful for ideas in my writing. I don't understand where they come from, but I'm always happy when they arrive, even more so when they are good ideas.

17) I'm thankful that -- so far as I know -- all of my former students survived Hurricane Sandy. I know that they have many miles to go in recovery, and that, sadly, things will never be exactly the same in Belle Harbor, Rockaway and other hard-hit places, but they are all here, and young enough to work hard to help their families. God bless them in doing so.

18) I'm thankful for the Community Park in the town where I live. It is beautifully landscaped and a lovely place to walk at (so far anyway) any time of the year.

19) I'm thankful for my tea canister. Every time I make a cup of tea, I think about my friend, N., who gave it to me. This kind of thinking is, to my mind, the best reason to give and get gifts.

20) I'm thankful that none of the candidates who said blatantly offensive things about rape got elected. We had ways of shutting that whole thing down.

21) I'm thankful for "The Good Wife." This hasn't been their best season, so far, but watching it is still like sitting backstage at the Tonys.

22) I'm thankful that someone talked Benedict Cumberbatch out of changing his name when he first started in acting.

23) I'm thankful for Jasper Fforde's novels. They're not all great, but they are all inventive and fun.

24) I'm thankful for knitting. Sometimes, when I feel stressed or anxious, it occurs to me to just knit for a bit, and I always feel so much better. Enough with the A Tale of Two Cities jokes, though, please, America.

25) I'm thankful that my students this semester have been of the quiet and nice variety. They may well not be quiet or nice outside of my class (and more power to them!) but they are not obnoxious and not mean to me or each other within my hearing. After 4 years of hellish rudeness in the NYCDOE, this is such a blessing.

November 13, 2012

It's been my tradition on this little blog to list the people, places, things and such that (or who) I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. Please join me!

1. Faith. I have an imperfect faith for a perfect God.

2. Family. It is a deep blessing to live closer to my parents, and more accessibly to my brother and sister-in-law. I miss my aunts in upstate New York, but I hope to be able to see them soon.

3. The Best Friend Trio: Roo, Teenie and Melarina. I am so blessed to call them my friends, and I am much further blessed to feel a part of the wonderful people who make up their families: P, A, R, SF, D, C...

4. I do not work for the NYCDOE anymore.

5. I have a job that I like, that is not too demanding and that I can do some good for others in performing well. This job allows me to connect with other people (important for a solitary writer) and teach in a lovely classroom as well as talk with peers I can respect and learn with and from.

6. A full scholarship to an excellent university.

7. Lots of time to write. If it's not getting done now, there's no one to blame but me!

8. A lovely and safe apartment. I wake up feeling happy to be here. I am very mindful of the fragileness of this security in the light of Hurrican Sandy and would invite you to donate to the Red Cross again. This is not a karmic stay against something bad happening to your home, but an acknowledgement that our beautiful lives are fragile.

9. All of the ways and devices with which I can communicate with my friends far and near. I feel like I am surrounded by a cloud of friends and family, even when alone. Such a blessing.

10. Exciting new writing and publishing projects on the horizon.

11. A glimpse of what financial security might be like.

12. U2's "Elevation." (I woke up with it in my head) Great song! "The corner of your lips/the orbit of your hips..."

13. Being outside in the woods more often. I took the picture above on a walk a few days ago. Love that. A lot.

November 05, 2012

Now that I am driving much more frequently, I find myself fighting the urge to do bad things in the car. Not those kinds of bad things. You know, like check my email or text to a friend. I am well aware that these are dangerous habits, and I also know that I hate how they make me feel -- rushed and anxious.

However, my mind moves fast and I get bored easily, so I've been trying to figure out something to do when traffic slows down or I'm stuck at one of the interminable 5-minutes-of-waiting-to-make-a-left-turns in the Pittsburgh area. My commute is essentially the same every day I drive onto campus, and while there's always stuff to look at, it's not quite enough. I don't like to listen to the radio because I tend to get caught up in the music or switching stations, and my car's radio is old and creaky, anyway. I was trying to sing some of the songs I used to know so well, but that's not really good as an early morning pursuit.Finally, I hit upon what to do!: Memorize poems.

This is a perfect way to pass the time, as saying the poems out loud warms up my voice and wakes me up. It feels good to fill my brain and mouth with great words (instead of, say, the lyrics to "Call Me Maybe."). I just print out a poem and have on the passenger seat next to me. Whenever I'm stuck for a couple of seconds, I memorize another line, and when I'm just driving, I go over what I've got down so far.
Last week, I worked on (and memorized) Elizabeth Bishop's Casabianca. I'd like to memorize the full poem that hers is based on, but it's really long and I don't feel quite up to that yet. Right now, I'm working on the Prologue to Henry V. It's a bit longer, but since I used it as a monologue in college, I should be able to get it down fairly quickly. We'll see!

(By the way, if you're wondering, yes, I am deeply hopeful that someone will provide some sort of opportunity to for me to recite one of the poems at length, preferably in a way that will leave the entire room breathless at my erudition. So, if you invite me over for dinner, you may not want to bring up ships, boys, wars or the English monarchy.)

If you have any poems or monologues you think I should consider memorizing, please let me know!

November 01, 2012

This photo seems like any other photo we've seen after a Hurricane -- upsetting, sad, perhaps unnerving. And so we turn the page, or click on the mouse, and move on. I know. I've done it so many times.

But this photo is not like every other photo for me. This hurricane is not like every other hurricane, which I have usually watched blow by from some safe, remote location. This time, for Sandy, I was, again, safe in Western Pennsylvania, but the photos bear unflinching witness that I am in no way remote this time.

For four years, I taught English at Stella Maris High School in Rockaway Beach, New York, a small community on a tiny pennisula of land jutting into the Atlantic Ocean just off of Brooklyn, although considered a part of Queens. Rockaway was a second home for me for those four years. I walked on its boardwalks and ate in its restaurants, had my manicure at its salons and picked up groceries at its store before catching the bus back to Park Slope. Wherever I walked, I saw someone I knew, usually a student, but sometimes someone who just knew me because their daughter, or neice, or younger sister had been in my class. Years later, as much as I enjoyed my students and colleagues at other workplaces, Rockaway still feels like a place where I still belong, and I proudly call myself a 38-year-old Stella Girl -- although the school closed several years ago.

Rockaway is hurting. The photo above was taken there. The photo below is what remains of the boardwalk where I walked.

I'm heaing amazing, harrowing stories. They dribble out over facebook as people can get to their computers. 100 houses burned to the ground. A former student drives back to her town and cannot find her home; it;'s gone. A former colleague's parents are lead out of their burning home, through the flood waters, by a brave neighbor. Basements are flooded, ruined. First floors are gone, too. A former student watched her car float away. In New York City. In 2012.

No power, no water, looting. There is desperate need for clothing, for baby wipes, for diapers. I've been fighting the urge to get in my car and drive there immediately for the last three days. I know I can't be of much help, but still, these young women were in my care for so many years, and I promised that I would always be there for them. Would you help me do that?

What can we do? We can pray, if we are the praying kind. We can ask the media to cover the devastation in Rockaway, in Breezy Point, in Long Beach, and in other, hurting places, like New Jersey, too. We can ask for fewer updates from and about people who are mildly inconvenienced and instead ask for a spotlight on the folks in dire straights.

And we can give. The Red Cross or text REDCROSS to 90999 and immediately donate $10. For those in New York, St. Francis de Sales Parish is accepting donations of food, clothing, baby supplies and money, and those outside NYC can send checks: St. Francis de Sales, 129-16 Rockaway Beach Blvd, Belle Harbor, NY 11694.

Please do something. Everything is not ok, or returning to normal, and these folks need us.